While Crystal Reports and Business Insights Explorer/Reporter are still available to you, Sage has created Sage MAS Intelligence, powered by Alchemex, to give you valuable insight into your business data and operations, allowing you to make more effective decisions.  Sage MAS Intelligence will be available to MAS 90 and MAS 200 users in August and MAS 500 users shortly there-after.  Leveraging Microsoft Office Excel, Sage MAS Intelligence enables you to create real-time automated reports with up-to-date and accurate information.

Sage MAS Intelligence has several tools to make your reporting and business intelligence customized to your unique business needs, including:

If you own FRx, you will automatically receive Sage MAS Intelligence Report Manager licenses when it becomes available.  Additional Report Manager licenses, Report Viewer, Connector, and Report Designer licenses will need to be purchased separately. 

Contact Socius to learn more or for help integrating Sage MAS Intelligence into your Sage MAS ERP software solution. 

Sample Dashboard:

Sample Report:

The article focused mainly on database structure and typical user amounts to define the difference between the three MAS software solutions.  There are, however, greater distinctions between the products, many of which directly affect manufacturers. 

Although they are built on different databases, Sage MAS 90 and 200 have the same six manufacturing modules: 

• Bill of Materials
• Inventory Management
• Materials Requirements Planning
• Purchase Order
• Sales Order
• Work Order 

These modules provide detailed and accurate tracking and reporting throughout the entire manufacturing process-from forecasting to the shop floor, and on to completion.

If you are a manufacturer looking for an end-to-end solution that includes relationship management tools, Sage MAS 90 or 200 Extended Enterprise Suite (EES) includes most of the manufacturing modules as part of the flat, per-user pricing.  The remaining manufacturing modules are available to be added to the EES solution. 

On the flip side, Sage MAS 500 ERP was built from the ground-up with Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Basic and Microsoft Office technology.  The twelve Sage MAS 500 manufacturing software modules optimize manufacturers’ operations for maximum productivity and provide a real-time business picture to enable you to manage profitability with insight.  These modules include:

• Advanced Manufacturing
• Advanced Planning and Scheduling
• Engineering Change Management
• Estimating
• Light Manufacturing Advanced Kitting
• Material Requirements Planning
• Product Configurator
• Project Management for Manufacturers
• Shop Floor Control
• Planning, Scheduling, and Optimization
• Process Manufacturing
• Service Management

Sage MAS 500 manufacturing software meets the diverse business requirements of varied industries, including industrial, chemical, high tech, automotive, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage and other industries.

To learn which Sage MAS ERP solution is the best fit for your manufacturing organization, request a complimentary Business Strategy Assessment from Socius!

• Provide more “Value for the Maintenance” Dollars
• Introduce New and Improved Capabilities

Their tactics for increasing the value that existing users are able to get from the system include:

• Incorporating the features and functionality of the most popular Extended Solution titles into the core product
• Implementing the most requested customer enhancements
• Providing ongoing product updates with additional features and minimal disruption

Through new releases, they will be expanding the functionality to include:

• Additional SageCRM Options for both Sage MAS 90 and 200
• A new financial and analytics reporting solution that will provide an alternative to FRx
• Microsoft SQL Server Support for Sage MAS 200

Download the complete Sage MAS 90 and 200 Product Roadmap to learn when to expect new updates and releases, what Extended Solutions are being incorporated into the core product and when, as well as what new intelligence tools you can take advantage of soon. 

The answer to all of the above is YES.  For more than one attachment, simply create additional memos.  One attachment per memo is allowed.  The sample below shows a PDF document being attached to a memo. 

Easy as 1-2-3!

1. Click the memo button beside the invoice field.
2. Enter a code and description. 
3. Attach the file.

By Alan Niergarth, a Sage ERP software consultant for Socius.

With the latest version of Sage MAS 90 and 200 (version 4.4) being shipped right now, Socius and Sage wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to get back on a ClientCare Support Plan so that you can take advantage of all of the great new features of MAS 90 4.4. 

We’ve teamed up to bring reinstating within sight for your business with our 20/20 Offer:

Sage is offering a 20% discount off of the final price of your reinstatement. Then, Socius is offering to take an additional 20% off of that.

Sample Reinstatement Investment Cost*:

In this scenario that is a $360 cost savings!
* This sample scenario is based on a $1,000.00 reinvestment cost. 

How much could you save by taking advantage of this offer?  Request a quote to find out!

This offer expires 3/31/2010.

What does this mean? You will experience increased benefits from your annual subscription investment. There are numerous changes both over and under-the-hood.  Some, become apparent as soon as you log- in.  See the revised home page below.  

Other changes are less obvious but have a huge impact.  For example: What if you want to use a customer’s 10 digit phone number as the Customer number?  (Kind of difficult when you only have 7 digits to use!)  With 4.4 the Customer Number may be expanded to up to 20 characters. Likewise, the Inventory Item Number is no longer limited to 15 characters; it may be expanded to 30.   This will allow you to use smart part numbers, such as UPCs, recycling codes and more.  From these changes, you will gain increased productivity and improve business workflow.

Sage MAS 90’s unique Custom Office capabilities have been made more powerful.  Some features previously requiring a click of a button may now be set to perform automatically.  This simplifies data entry. For example, you can use standard scripting to have sales order quote expiration dates automatically change according to the type of order or quote you choose.

A parallel upgrade migration path means you can continue with your current system while your new version is being tested.  Those new Windows 7 workstations you have put off buying while waiting for support for Sage MAS 90 may now be added.

 Learn more about version 4.4 and begin planning your upgrade today! 

By Alan Niergarth, a Cincinnati Ohio based Sage MAS 90 and 200 Consultant

Here’s an example.  Jill V. is responsible for the maintenance of budgets for accounts that are not in a logical grouping by an existing account segment.  By assigning a Rollup Code type as “Budget MGR” and then entering the list of active budget managers, I can assign any account to Jill which, the following two screens illustrate:

Once a Rollup Code is in use, it becomes an available selection criteria for use in many of the standard MAS 90 GL reports including: GL Detail, Standard Income Statement and (you guessed it) Budget Reports.  The next two screens illustrate picking all accounts that have “Jill V. as the “Budget MGR” and the resulting report.

Another convenient use for grouping by Rollup Codes is in the GL Insights Explorer views, especially if you would like to export the accounts grouped by Rollup Codes to Excel.  To learn how to create your own “custom” views for use in the General Ledger or other modules, please see our earlier Blog on use of Views in MAS 90.

By Alan Niergarth, a Socius solutions consultant specializing in Sage MAS 90, 200, and 500 ERP software.

The reason that happens is because the content of the data you see when clicking on the “lookup” button (or pressing the F2 key) to search for records is initially set by Sage so you don’t just get an empty screen when searching:

But, what if you want to see different information?  Maybe the “Sort Field” isn’t used but, you would like to see “City”, assigned to “SalespersonNo” or any of the other seventy-odd fields available when searching for customers.

The User Lookup Wizard is a convenient tool to change the contents of the search window in such a way to provide a consistent result when searching for records.  It allows the modification of the search inquiry screens that can be applied to specific or all users and specific or all companies. In other words, when anyone in company “ABC” clicks on the lookup button to search for customers, the result could be different from the screen above.

For example; this screen would be more useful to a credit manager or salesperson performing a customer lookup.

To Access the User Lookup Wizard – look in the Library Master – Main menu. Pick the appropriate file for lookup you wish to change.

From there you can select the companies and users for whom the lookup will apply.  Individual users, if allowed through security permissions, may still create their own personal lookups but, this provides a method for consistency and allows designated persons to be responsible for changes.

By Alan Niergarth, an Ohio Sage ERP software consultant for Socius

If your organization is facing these challenges, you should know that an accounting software solution like Microsoft Dynamics GP or Sage MAS 90 and 200 can provide your business with protection and peace of mind.

Microsoft Dynamics GP provides ways to reduce these risks even with a reduced audit and compliance staff.  The Audit Trails and Electronic Signatures modules of Microsoft Dynamics GP Advanced Management Enterprise take a process-oriented approach to managing risk, increasing controls and maintaining compliance all while reducing operating costs.  By storing audit trails in a database that is separate from your production environment and operating as a closed system environment, the Audit Trails module supports regulatory requirements, compliance procedures, and strong controls.  The Electronic Signatures module enables preventative authorization controls to be strategically activated at any place in the system where data is changed, presenting your people with a window that requires authorized user identity information either on-site or remotely through a system notification and response.

To learn more about how Microsoft Dynamics GP can help your organization reduce your fraud risk and improve audit compliance even in challenging economic times, download this whitepaper:  Help Achieve Compliance Objectives with Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Sage MAS 90 and 200 ERPprovides visibility into your business’ financial data that can help you detect fraud or mismanagement early and resolve data discrepencies quickly with minimal disruption to the business. In addition, the eProcess Manager Suite which works with MAS 90 provides another level of risk management and compliance activities all linked back to our organizational strategies.  It allows you to capture and manage entity, departmental, business cycle and process risks, issues and opportunities. Built in risk assessments will help determine where you are, and position you to improve where you will receive the biggest impact based on your objectives.

Want to talk to someone about reducing your fraud risk and securing your financial data through your ERP solution or changes to business processes?  Request an Internal Controls Assessmentfrom Socius!

1.  Close Sage MAS 90 and 200 Modules in the Appropriate Order:  The processing order insures that an application that writes to another application is processed first. Perform a full company backup before closing because year end processing can be reversed only by restoring a backup file. Modules are to be closed in the following order:

1. Bill of Materials
2. Work Order Processing
3. Bar Code
4. Purchase Order Processing
5. Sales Order Processing
6. Inventory Management
7. Material Requirements Planning
8. Timecard
9. Magnetic Media
10. Payroll
11. Accounts Receivable
12. Accounts Payable
13. Job Cost
14. General Ledger

For details, see What is the order of closing modules. 

2.  Don’t Forget about Tax Table Updates: IRS mandated changes are included in the tax table updates posted on Sage Software Online. Process the last Payroll before installing the update. For more information, see How to download and install tax table updates (TTUs).

When using Sage MAS 90 and 200 version 4.3 Federal and State eFiling and Reporting, you will no longer need to apply the IRD for 1099 or W2 printing, or Electronic Reporting. However, you will still need to download and install the Q1 2010 Tax Table Update.

3.  Print W-2s Before You Start: W-2s must be printed before quarterly and year end processing. If not, create a copy of the company, and then print W-2s from the copied company. For more information, see How to print W-2s.

You are now able to access Federal and State eFiling and Reporting within the Payroll module to update W-2s or 1099s, and for updates to 1099s from the Accounts Payable module. Simply accessing eFiling and Reporting within Sage MAS 90 and 200 will prompt you to apply the online automated update.

4.  Get Your Physical Inventory Counts in Order: First address the negative tiers for LIFO and FIFO items, then print the Physical Count Worksheet and freeze the on hand quantities. After the inventory is counted, enter the counts in Physical Count Entry, and review the variance report before updating the physical count data to General Ledger. For details, see How to process a Physical Count.

If you have any questions about Year-End closing proceedures, please contact Socius’ Lori Ramsey at 800.587.6614 x3214.